Come to Eat Real Fest 2014!
OAKLAND, CA – From September 19-21, Eat Real Festival returns for its 6th year with the debut of seven craft food and beverage pavilions in Oakland’s historic Jack London Square. Presented by the Food Craft Institute, Eat Real spotlights a curated selection of local vendors and food stalls, highlighting food entrepreneurs, artisan products, and Oakland’s top chefs, while encouraging sustainable growth in regional food systems. As always, Eat Real attendance is 100% FREE of charge, all food at the festival features regionally sourced, sustainably produced ingredients and all street food is priced $8.00 or less. A combination of street fair, street-food festival and block party, the annual celebration will feature tastings, DIY workshops, competitions and celebrated local chef demos, with dedicated pavilions that highlight the following:
– Fermentation
– FarmCraft
– Grains & Milling
– Confections
– Meat & Butchery
– Preserves & Sauces
– The Watering Hole (Craft Beverages)
Eat Real Festival kicks off on Friday, September 19 with the premiere of Oakland Chef Night, featuring live demos from five acclaimed local chefs including Preeti Mistry (Juhu Beach Club), Rico Rivera (Flora), Rick Hackett (Bocanova), Gloria Dominguez (Tamarindo), and Charlie Parker (Haven). Each chef will showcase an individual recipe centered on one of the dedicated food craft pavilion categories, such as Meat & Butchery, Fermentation, and more.
Saturday, September 20 marks the return of historic CA ranch Llano Seco’s weekend-long Offal Wonderful festivities, and 2014 is “The Year of Blood!” The Bloody Brunch is the ultimate celebration of all things “blood” in food and beverage craft through grand tastings of blood sausages from around the world, biscuits with blood orange compote and a DIY brine-to-Bloody Mary workshop.
WHEN: September 19th-21st, 2014
Friday: 1:00PM—9:00 PM
Saturday: 10:30 AM—9:00 PM
Sunday: 10:30 AM—5:00 PM
WHERE: Jack London Square, Oakland, CA (65 Webster Street, west of Embarcadero)
Additional highlights include:
DIY Drinks in The Watering Hole: Eat Real Festival curates an entire indoor pavilion, dedicated solely to drinks, offering tasting flights of local wines, craft spirits, microbrews, ciders, and more from curated pop-up vendors. For only $10, enjoy a flight of four varieties of small-batch alcoholic beverages on the ground floor, or visit the second floor for educational demos such as DIY bitters, coffee roasting at home, and how to make homemade booze infusions.
NEW – Oyster Shuck-Off: In partnership with Jack London Square’s newest restaurant, Jack’s Oyster Bar, Eat Real Festival will host the first annual Oyster Shuck-Off, where willing festival-goers will compete to see who can shuck the most oysters in a five-minute challenge, followed directly by an oyster & cocktail pairing in the upstairs lounge of the Watering Hole (ticketed entry).
NEW – Kimchi-a-thon: Happy Girl Kitchen’s Todd Champagne and Farmhouse Culture’s fermentista founder Kathryn Lukas are making cabbage heads roll for the fifth year in a row. This year, they’re putting a Seoul-ful spin on their highly acclaimed Kraut-a-thon to show fermentation fans the ins and outs of Kimchi making. Participants will leave with their very own jar of community Kimchi and, more importantly, the knowledge to recreate their own microbial magic at home.
NEW – Kids’ Blender Battle: The kids de cuisine from Sprouts Cooking Club don’t run any old lemonade stand. This year, they’re putting away their knives and brandishing their blenders instead. Watch as each smoothie whiz pairs with a kid from the crowd to whirl their way to the title of Smooth Operator.
Proceeds from the festival will benefit the Food Craft Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching budding entrepreneurs and artisans how to build successful food businesses. The festival is 100% free to attend and all street food items are priced at $8 or less.
